Regional politics: The European union and citizenship

This article examines the development of citizenship within the European Economic Community as a model for citizenship as such, within a global environment. In historical terms, citizenship evolved within the nation‐state, but the nation‐state, which is no longer valid as the exclusive model of economic development, may be inappropriate as a framework for social rights. The fluidity of labour within the European community means that traditional means of political representation within the nation‐state are irrelevant. Within a global context, the economic barriers which are required by nation‐states constitute political barriers to social rights through the vehicle of citizenship. The article considers the European experience of regional politics as lessons for citizenship reform in a global system.     

Governance in the European union

Governance in the EU. Edited by GARY MARKS, FRITZ W.SCHARPF, PHILIPPE C. SCHMITTER and WOLFGANG STREECK. London: Sage, 1996. Pp.192, biblio, index. £37.50 (cloth); £12.95 (paper). ISBN 0–7619–5134–2 and ‐5135–0.

Elitism, Populism, and European Politics, Edited by JACK HAYWARD. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp.265, index. £35 (cloth). ISBN 0–19–828035–1.

Adjusting to Europe. The Impact of the EU on National Institutions and Policies. Edited by Y. MÉNY, PIERRE MULLER and JEAN‐LOUIS QUERMONNE. London and NY: Routledge, 1996. Pp.181, index. £40 (cloth); £13.99 (paper). ISBN 0–415–14410–8 and ‐14409–4.

Cohesion Policy and European Integration: Building Multi‐Level Governance. Edited by LIESBET HOOGHE. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp.458, biblio., index. £40 (cloth). ISBN 0–19–828064–5.

The European Union and Members States. Towards Institutional Fusion? Edited by DIETRICH ROMETSCH and WOLFGANG WESSELS. Manchester and NY: Manchester University Press, 1996. Pp.382, index. £45 (cloth). ISBN 0–7190–4809–5.

The Impact of European Integration. Political, Sociological and Economic Changes. Edited by GEORGE A. KOURVETARIS and ANDREAS MOSCHONAS. Westport and London: Praeger, 1996. Pp.335, index, annotated biblio. £51.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–275–94952–4.

European Welfare Policy. Squaring the Welfare Circle. Edited by VIC GEORGE and PETER TAYLOR‐GOOBY. Pp.224, tables, index. Macmillan, 1996. £11.99 (paper). ISBN 0–333–60917–4.

European Integration and Disintegration. East and West. Edited by ROBERT BIDELEUX and RICHARD TAYLOR. London and NY: Routledge, 1996. Pp.298, index. £45 (cloth); £13.99 (paper). ISBN 0–415–13740–3 and ‐13741–1.

The European Union: How Democratic Is It? Edited by SVEIN ANDERSEN and KJELL A.ELIASSEN, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi: Sage, 1996. Pp.295, biblio, index. £13.95 (paper). ISBN 0–7‐619–5113‐X.

Democracy, Sovereignty and the European Union. By MICHAEL NEWMAN. London: Hurst, 1996. Pp.236. £30 (cloth); £10.95 (paper). ISBN 1–85065–256–2 and 255–4.     

Redistribution in a political union: The case of the EU

A key function of centralized budgets in federal and political unions is to act as an equalizing mechanism to support economic and social cohesion. This is also the case with the European Union's (EU) budget, which operates as a redistributive mechanism that counteracts the cross-national and cross-regional inequalities created by the single market. Despite the limits on cross-national redistribution imposed by a centrifugal system of representation, the net fiscal position of member states – what they pay to the EU budget minus what they receive from it – is very diverse and has changed quite remarkably over the last decades. In this paper, we investigate how and why the net fiscal position of each member state toward the rest of the EU changes over time. We develop a novel panel dataset (1979–2014) to study how key national and EU-level political and economic variables affect the EU redistributive dynamics. We find that redistribution via the EU budget primarily targets developments in inequality within EU member states, and that an increase in domestic unemployment may also improve the country's fiscal balance. Moreover, we find that voting power in the Council is unrelated to a more positive fiscal balance. However, we find that governments with a centre-right profile are in general more successful in improving their redistributive position vis-à-vis the other member states. This may create a problem of budgetary ‘rent extraction’.     

The European Parliament and environmental legislation: The case of chemicals

Abstract The paper studies the impact of the EP on legislation on chemical pollutants introduced under the Cooperation procedure. A series of formal and informal analyses have predicted from significant impact of the EP, to limited impact (only in the second round) to no impact at all. Through the analysis of Parliamentary debates as well as Commission and Parliamentary committee documents, we are able to assess the significance of different amendments, as well as the degree to which they were introduced in the final decision of the Council. Our analysis indicates first that less than 30% of EP amendments are insignificant, while 15% are important or very important; second, that the probability of acceptance of an amendment is the same regardless of its significance. Further analysis indicates two sources of bias of aggregate EP statistics: several amendments are complementary (deal with the same issue in different places of the legal document), and a series of amendments that are rejected as inadmissible (because they violate the legal basis of the document or the germainess requirement) are included in subsequent pieces of legislation. We calculate the effect of these biases in our sample, and find that official statistics under estimate Parliamentary influence by more than 6 percentage points (49% instead of 56% in our sample). Finally, we compare a series of observed strategic behaviors of different actors (rapporteurs, committees, floor, Commission) to different expectations generated by the literature.     

The European parliament and environmental legislation: The case of chemicals

The paper studies the impact of the EP on legislation on chemical pollutants introduced under the Cooperation procedure. A series of formal and informal analyses have predicted from significant impact of the EP, to limited impact (only in the second round) to no impact at all. Through the analysis of Parliamentary debates as well as Commission and Parliamentary committee documents, we are able to assess the significance of different amendments, as well as the degree to which they were introduced in the final decision of the Council. Our analysis indicates first that less than 30% of EP amendments are insignificant, while 15% are important or very important; second, that the probability of acceptance of an amendment is the same regardless of its significance. Further analysis indicates two sources of bias of aggregate EP statistics: several amendments are complementary (deal with the same issue in different places of the legal document), and a series of amendments that are rejected as inadmissible (because they violate the legal basis of the document or the germainess requirement) are included in subsequent pieces of legislation. We calculate the effect of these biases in our sample, and find that official statistics under estimate Parliamentary influence by more than 6 percentage points (49% instead of 56% in our sample). Finally, we compare a series of observed strategic behaviors of different actors (rapporteurs, committees, floor, Commission) to different expectations generated by the literature.     

The social dimension of the Single European Market: National versus transnational regulation

Abstract. Labour market regulation in the 1980s was subject to transnational pressures for deregulation, especially in the form of 'flexibilisation'. The 'Single European Market' project (SEM) promises further development in this direction. At the same time, proposals for a 'Social Charter' are meant to introduce a European level of regulation to counteract the SEM's potential destabilizing consequences. However, regulatory disputes and pressures contrary to convergence are likely to be intensified by the SEM. Still further uncertainty will be created by changes in Eastern Europe, as well as by greater opportunities for cross-border production shifts. Neoliberal and neocorporatist variants of the 'competition state' will be increasingly at odds at both state and Community level, with the future of 'social Europe' at stake. To the extent that market integration means a globalisation of the European economy, it may effectively disintegrate its component parts, dividing those which have more solid foundations for growth - the well-regulated, high pay/high productivity areas - from those which do not. The market logic of the Single European Market programme will manifestly contradict the efforts of the Community to avoid this future.     

Harmonization of social policies and social regulation in the European Community

Abstract. The development of the European Community entails harmonization of policies in many areas. This paper analyses to what extent harmonization has taken place in the traditional fields of social policy. Interventions by the EC authorities in the social policy area, here termed direct harmonization, are examined. Indirect harmonization, resulting from common economic policies and the internationalization of the economy, is used as a key concept in an empirical study of the development of coverage, benefit levels and methods of financing in the main social insurance systems within the EC countries, since 1955. The corresponding development in the EFTA countries is here used as a baseline for comparison. The results are discussed in light of the thesis that also in the social field EC policies may fruitfully be interpreted in terms of the EC's main objective of economic integration. Some criteria for the consideration of future developments are suggested.     

Between Europe and unity: The case of the Swedish social democrats

Sweden voted in November 1994 to approve EU membership. Although the Social Democratic Party's leadership advocated approval, the membership was badly divided. Against the backdrop of two Nordic sister parties’ similar difficulties, this article examines the leadership's management of the internal conflict. It analyses the evolution and main elements of its management strategy, the most important being an attempt to accommodate rather than confront the party's Eurosceptics. As the leadership's two goals for 1994, an election victory and a ‘Yes’ in the referendum, were both achieved, the strategy must be considered a qualified, short‐term success.     

Europeanisation and social movements: The case of the Stop TTIP campaign

Over the past years, the economic crisis has significantly challenged the ways through which social movements have conceptualised and interacted with European Union institutions and policies. Although valuable research on the Europeanisation of movements has already been conducted, finding moderate numbers of Europeanised protests and actors, more recent studies on the subject have been limited to austerity measures and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has been investigated more from a trade unions’ or an international relations perspective. In this article, the TTIP is used as a very promising case study to analyse social movements’ Europeanisation – that is, their capacity to mobilise referring to European issues, targets and identities. Furthermore, the TTIP is a crucial test case because it concerns a policy area (foreign trade) which falls under the exclusive competence of the EU. In addition, political opportunities for civil society actors are ‘closed’ in that negotiations are kept ‘secret’ and discussed mainly within the European Council, and it is difficult to mobilise a large public on such a technical issue. So why and how has this movement become ‘Europeanised’? This comparative study tests the Europeanisation hypothesis with a protest event analysis on anti‐TTIP mobilisation in six European countries (Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria) at the EU level in the period 2014–2016 (for a total of 784 events) and uses semi‐structured interviews in Brussels with key representatives of the movement and policy makers. The findings show that there is strong adaptation of social movements to multilevel governance – with the growing presence of not only purely European actors, but also European targets, mobilisations and transnational movement networks – with a ‘differential Europeanisation’. Not only do the paths of Europeanisation vary from country to country (and type of actor), but they are also influenced by the interplay between the political opportunities at the EU and domestic levels.     

The liberalisation of capital movements and financial services in the European single market: A case study in regulation

Abstract. The creation of a common market in capital is a basic component of the European Community's single market programme. This article provides an explanation of the factors which have shaped the single market for capital in terms of three 'perspectives' which supplement each other and which collectively provide a substantive explanation. These perspectives include: (i) the policy requirements and politico-economic context of the single market programme; (ii) the complex and multi-faceted nature of regulation in the financial services field; and (iii) the political balance of power between the national, EC and international agencies involved in financial regulation. Each of these three perspectives contributes salient insights unavailable to the other two. Collectively they provide an explanation of how the liberalisation of capital movements and financial services has actually involved creating a more sophisticated regulatory order rather than simply reducing the volume of regulation.     

The European regulation of corporate social responsibility: The role of beneficiaries' intermediaries

Intended beneficiaries have an undeniable relevance to regulation. However, current research has focused mainly on the two‐party relationship between rulemaking and rule‐taking. We attempt to fill this gap by exploring the formal and informal roles that beneficiaries’ intermediaries played in co‐creating European Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) rules and associated practices between 2000 and 2017. By linking recent conceptualizations of regulatory intermediaries with the literature on critical political CSR, we offer a more dynamic and contextualized understanding of the roles of beneficiaries’ intermediaries. Specifically, we identify six micro‐dynamics through which they influenced the regulatory process. Notably, our findings highlight how the convergence of interests between three groups of beneficiaries’ intermediaries – the Non‐governmental organization–Investor–Union nexus – had a key role in reshaping CSR rules. We conclude that, in the European context, stronger and better‐coordinated beneficiaries’ intermediaries are crucial in order to achieve more effective corporate conduct regulation.     

新社会组织党建工作研究——以山东省青州市为例

加强新社会组织党建工作是扩大党的群众基础,提高党的执政能力,构建和谐社会的必然要求。新社会组织的产生以及运行有其必然的历史条件和独特的方式。对新社会组织进行有效的党的组织管理,必须深入调查,全面掌握。了解其存在的现状,查找其存在的问题,分析原因,制定措施,真正达到巩固党的执政基础,促进新社会组织自身健康发展的目的。     

Political leadership and European integration: The case of Jacques Delors

European Community politics created new opportunities for political leadership. Leadership of the integration process was provided first and foremost by national political leaders, with the EC's supranational institution — the Commission — playing a supporting role. Jacques Delors was the first Commission president (1985–1995) significantly to redefine his role, and consequently to create a model for European, supranational political leadership. Analysing Jacques Delors’ discourse provides us with a methodological tool for understanding how he politicised the leadership role of the Commission, and to what effect.     

The social construction of the participatory turn: The emergence of a norm in the European Union

At the beginning of the 1990s a new discourse emerged at the European Union level, insisting on the necessity of ‘civil society’ participation in decision‐making processes. Based on a ‘strategic‐constructivist’ research design, this article addresses the question of the emergence of this participatory turn in the official discourse and its transformation into a norm. It argues that the continued activism of an elite forum, consisting of political and administrative actors as well as academics, created the momentum that brought the concerned actors to accept the participatory norm and to play the roles required by it. However, due to internal competition amongst norm entrepreneurs, and a changed political situation, this norm is still contested, making it difficult to assess how its implementation will function.